Scottish Ballet: The Nutcracker, Festival Theatre

There is plenty to please ballet - and Monty Python - fans

JOSIE BALFOUR

What stands out about Scottish Ballet is the absolute joy with which they approach their productions. They have unending reserves of verve, creativity and comic inventiveness. It’s a refreshing contrast to some of the technically correct Russian ballet companies who one suspects spend their down time living in noirish black and white.

Although darker than many adaptations of this usually sugar-coated Christmas favourite, there are still nods to the season and a faithful adherence to oversize Christmas trees, children’s gifts and orgiastic feasting. In fact, there is a distinct emphasis on adult sauce, particularly in the 1920s-inspired world inhabited by young Marie and her family. The unexpected and continuous display of frilly knickers by the two household maids makes it difficult to focus on anything else happening in the auditorium.

Hovering in the background are glimpses of other, more dramatic things going on through the large window in the centre of the stage, almost as if the set is in fact a doll’s house. Anyone familiar with Spiny Norman the Hedgehog will be pleasantly surprised by the Terry Gilliam-esque goings-on as the evening progresses.

The use of masks to deform the unfortunate victims of Sophie Laplane’s malevolent Dame Mouserink is striking, The Nutcracker’s face dramatically changing as the story of how he came to be a humble doll unfolds.

Credit must also go to Luciana Ravizzi and Lewis Landini for their turns as Marie’s party-mad parents and as performers in the mysterious Herr Drosselmeyer’s play during Act One.

Focusing on ETA Hoffmann’s original tale The Nutcracker and The Mouse King, the narrative is tight and directed, although it means that the final divertissement of international dances feels rather incongruous, even though the dances are beguiling and eye catching. The Arabian dance, in particular makes way for some inventive interaction between three male dancers and the lithe Ravizzi.

The production is only really placed back on track by a spellbinding Grand Pas de Deux by Bethany Kingsley- Garner and Eric Cavallari.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.